The Syria researcher and commentator who was cited by US leaders who have called for military action against the Middle Eastern country has been fired from her Washington-based think tank for lying about her qualifications.

“The Institute for the Study of War has learned and confirmed that, contrary to her representations, Ms. Elizabeth O’Bagy does not in fact have a Ph.D. degree from Georgetown University,” the research group announced in an online statement Wednesday. “ISW has accordingly terminated Ms. O’Bagy’s employment, effective immediately.”

Both US Secretary of State John Kerry and Senator John McCain referenced an editorial she had written in the Wall Street Journal during congressional hearings during which they argued in favor of US military strikes against Syria. The 26-year-old wrote that “contrary to many media accounts, the war in Syria is not being waged entirely, or even predominantly, by dangerous Islamists and Al-Qaeda die-hards.”

She told McClatchy that she was merely waiting for Georgetown to confer her degree after submitting and defending her dissertation, also claiming she was in a dual master’s and doctorate program at the private Washington university. O’Bagy said the dissertation was titled “With Both Rifle and Child: The Role of Female Militancy in Islamic Societies.” She wrote that she was “talking to some publishers about possibly turning it into a book.”

Kimberly Kagan, who founded the Institute for the Study of War in 2007, said she was “deeply saddened” by the revelation but does not discount any of O’Bagy’s work.

“Everything I’ve looked at is rock solid,” she told Politico. “Every thread that we have pulled upon has been verified through multiple sources.”

O’Bagy also served as the political director of the Syria Emergency Task Force (SETF), a Syrian rebel advocacy group that has lobbied the White House and Congress to lend support to opposition groups. The Wall Street Journal was criticized earlier this week for failing to disclose O’Bagy’s ties to the group. O’Bagy told The Daily Caller Wednesday that she was not employed by the SETF, but an independent contractor who was not involved in their lobbying efforts.

She also resisted the Obama administration’s decision to deem al-Nusra a terror organization in December.

“I’m not saying they aren’t a terrorist group,” she told McClatchy last year. “But given the circumstances and given their disastrous cooperation with the opposition as a whole, designating them now would be disastrous.”

The powerful Syrian rebel group formally allied itself with Al-Qaeda less than five months later and O’Bagy later admitted her initial comments were wrong.

Kerry said the op-ed was a “very interesting article” and remarked on O’Bagy’s “enormous” experience, including learning Arabic. But Janine Di Giovanni, a veteran foreign correspondent who has covered the conflict on the ground, told the Huffington Post that O’Bagy “exaggerated wildly her experience inside Syria.

“Those of us who work in Syria, as reporters or researchers, are a very small group of people,” she said. “It’s not a war to cut your teeth in. A lot of people were quite shocked when a 26-year-old Ph.D, so-called Syria expert who appeared to have never worked in the region, and whom no one had heard of, appeared on CNN and other networks as a Syrian expert.”

The Syria researcher and commentator who was cited by US leaders who have called for military action against the Middle Eastern country has been fired from her Washington-based think tank for lying about her qualifications.

“The Institute for the Study of War has learned and confirmed that, contrary to her representations, Ms. Elizabeth O’Bagy does not in fact have a Ph.D. degree from Georgetown University,” the research group announced in an online statement Wednesday. “ISW has accordingly terminated Ms. O’Bagy’s employment, effective immediately.”

Both US Secretary of State John Kerry and Senator John McCain referenced an editorial she had written in the Wall Street Journal during congressional hearings during which they argued in favor of US military strikes against Syria. The 26-year-old wrote that “contrary to many media accounts, the war in Syria is not being waged entirely, or even predominantly, by dangerous Islamists and Al-Qaeda die-hards.”

She told McClatchy that she was merely waiting for Georgetown to confer her degree after submitting and defending her dissertation, also claiming she was in a dual master’s and doctorate program at the private Washington university. O’Bagy said the dissertation was titled “With Both Rifle and Child: The Role of Female Militancy in Islamic Societies.” She wrote that she was “talking to some publishers about possibly turning it into a book.”

Kimberly Kagan, who founded the Institute for the Study of War in 2007, said she was “deeply saddened” by the revelation but does not discount any of O’Bagy’s work.

“Everything I’ve looked at is rock solid,” she told Politico. “Every thread that we have pulled upon has been verified through multiple sources.”

O’Bagy also served as the political director of the Syria Emergency Task Force (SETF), a Syrian rebel advocacy group that has lobbied the White House and Congress to lend support to opposition groups. The Wall Street Journal was criticized earlier this week for failing to disclose O’Bagy’s ties to the group. O’Bagy told The Daily Caller Wednesday that she was not employed by the SETF, but an independent contractor who was not involved in their lobbying efforts.

She also resisted the Obama administration’s decision to deem al-Nusra a terror organization in December.

“I’m not saying they aren’t a terrorist group,” she told McClatchy last year. “But given the circumstances and given their disastrous cooperation with the opposition as a whole, designating them now would be disastrous.”

The powerful Syrian rebel group formally allied itself with Al-Qaeda less than five months later and O’Bagy later admitted her initial comments were wrong.

Kerry said the op-ed was a “very interesting article” and remarked on O’Bagy’s “enormous” experience, including learning Arabic. But Janine Di Giovanni, a veteran foreign correspondent who has covered the conflict on the ground, told the Huffington Post that O’Bagy “exaggerated wildly her experience inside Syria.

“Those of us who work in Syria, as reporters or researchers, are a very small group of people,” she said. “It’s not a war to cut your teeth in. A lot of people were quite shocked when a 26-year-old Ph.D, so-called Syria expert who appeared to have never worked in the region, and whom no one had heard of, appeared on CNN and other networks as a Syrian expert.”

During a short interview with Germany’s DW News last Monday, former US National Security Adviser and Trilateral Commission co-founder Zbigniew Brzezinski commented on the growing inefficiency of war due to the increased political knowledge of the public.

Brzezinski-global-awakening-news“Given the contemporary reality of what I have called in my writings ‘Global Political Awakening,’ a policy of force based primarily on Western and in some cases former colonial powers does not seem to me a very promising avenue to an eventual solution to the regional problem,” said Brzezinski, referring to the situation in Syria.

Despite Brzezinski’s noted long-term relationship with Obama which included a top foreign policy adviser position, Brzezinski denied any specific knowledge of his plans regarding Syria, saying that if the administration has a strategy, it’s a “very well-kept secret.”

Obama’s Middle Eastern strategy has been a mere continuation of the policies seen under Bush, exemplified by former four star general and NATO commander Wesley Clark’s admission of the Bush-era Pentagon plan to overthrow several countries including Libya and Syria.

Although Brzezinski at times attempts to appear opposed to military interventionism, President Obama’s actions in Syria, which include the support of admitted Al Qaeda fighters, closely mirrors several of Brzezinski’s previous policies, most notably the opposition to the Soviet Union in 1979, where decisions made by Brzezinski led to the creation of Al Qaeda through the CIA funding of the Afghan Mujaheddin.

Brzezinski’s call of warning to the “global political awakening” has only intensified in recent years. Last year during a speech in Poland, Brzezinski noted that it has become “increasingly difficult to suppress” and control the “persistent and highly motivated populist resistance of politically awakened and historically resentful peoples.” Brzezinski also blamed the accessibility of “radio, television and the Internet” for the “universal awakening of mass political consciousness.”

“[The] major world powers, new and old, also face a novel reality: while the lethality of their military might is greater than ever, their capacity to impose control over the politically awakened masses of the world is at a historic low. To put it bluntly: in earlier times, it was easier to control one million people than to physically kill one million people; today, it is infinitely easier to kill one million people than to control one million people,” said Brzezinski during a 2010 Council on Foreign Relations speech in Montreal.

Despite attempts by both the Republican and Democratic leadership to gain support for a war in Syria, a new Reuters poll revealed that only 9 percent of Americans support military intervention in Syria. If the United States intervenes, it will be the least popular war in American history.

The massive and growing evidence forced out by the alternative media, which points to a US backed chemical attack by Al Qaeda led rebel forces to be blamed on Assad, has only accelerated the inevitable downfall of the corporate press that is now only trusted by 23 percent of the public.

46% Suspect Controlled Demolition of World Trade Center Building 7 after Viewing Video Footage of Collapse.

On the 12th anniversary of 9/11, a new national survey by the polling firm YouGov reveals that one in two Americans have doubts about the government’s account of 9/11, and after viewing video footage of World Trade Center Building 7’s collapse, 46% suspect that it was caused by a controlled demolition. Building 7, a 47-story skyscraper, collapsed into its own footprint late in the afternoon on 9/11.

The poll was sponsored by ReThink911, a global public awareness campaign launched on September 1. The campaign includes a 54-foot billboard in Times Square and a variety of transit and outdoor advertising in 11 other cities, all posing the question, “Did you know a third tower fell on 9/11?”

Among the poll’s findings:

38% of Americans have some doubts about the official account of 9/11, 10% do not believe it at all, and 12% are unsure about it; 46%, nearly one in two, are not aware that a third tower collapsed on 9/11. Of those who are aware of Building 7’s collapse, only 19% know the building’s name; After seeing video footage of Building 7′s collapse: 46% are sure or suspect it was caused by controlled demolition, compared to 28% who are sure or suspect fires caused it, and 27% who don’t know; By a margin of nearly two to one, 41% support a new investigation of Building 7′s collapse, compared to 21% who oppose it.

“The poll shows quite clearly what we already knew. Most people who see Building 7’s collapse have trouble believing that fires brought it down,” said Richard Gage, a member of the American Institute of Architects and founder of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, the campaign’s major sponsor. “It simply doesn’t look like a natural building collapse, and that’s because all the columns have been removed at once to allow it to come down symmetrically in free-fall. The evidence of controlled demolition is overwhelming. As more and more people learn about Building 7, public demand for a new investigation grows. People want the truth.”

According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), normal office fires caused the failure of a single column, starting a chain reaction that brought Building 7 down. More than 2,000 architects and engineers have signed the Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth petition that questions NIST’s explanation of the building’s collapse.

“Even the government’s own computer model disproves its theory. It looks nothing like the actual collapse,” said Tony Szamboti, a mechanical engineer from the Philadelphia area. “Not only that, they refuse to release the data that would allow us to verify their model. In the world of science, this is as bad as it gets. I’m glad most people can look at the collapse and see the obvious.”

The ReThink911 campaign calls for a new investigation into Building 7’s collapse, as well as the destruction of the Twin Towers. The YouGov poll and the ad campaign were financed with more than $225,000 in donations from thousands of supporters.

All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 1194 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 27th – 29th August 2013. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all US adults (aged 18+).